First Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, compared net neutrality to “Obamacare for the Internet,” and now outspoken businessman Mark Cuban has tweeted that President Barack Obama’s proposed policy is something “straight out of Ayn Rand.”
Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and numerous entertainment outlets, tweeted a series of comments about net neutrality on November 13. (Tweets are below.) The tweets centered on comparing net neutrality to the extreme overreaches of government authority depicted by pro-capitalist author and philosopher Ayn Rand in such novels as “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
In one of his tweets, Cuban wrote, “If Ayn Rand were an up and coming author today, she wouldnt write about steel or railroads, it would be net neutrality.”
Cuban’s tweets followed Obama’s announcement on November 10, 2014, that he supported efforts by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to promote net neutrality and regulate elements of the internet as if it were a public utility.
Critics of net neutrality say it would be a blow to free speech and the economy. Phil Kerpen, President of the free market think tank American Commitment, said in a press release on September 16, 2014, “A Washington takeover of the Internet would be disastrous for free speech, commerce, and the future of the Internet as a sphere of innovation.”
